“I have plenty of books where the main character does not have a love interest, there is no romance in the books, but it’s still a queer book” going to need that list PLEASE!!!🙂 as a bi/ace human, I would like to read all of them 👍
THANK YOU for the discussion on bisexuality omg. As a bi woman engaged to a straight cis man, I often feel like I'm somehow not "queer enough" or like I don't belong in the LGBTQIA+ community because I'm with a man when that's literally part of being bi lol. I would like to see more bi representation in books, for sure, especially with "hetero facing" relationships with bi characters because I feel like that would validate and reassure people who are in similar situations, like me, that we're still queer even if we're in a straight-passing relationship. Thank you for and yes I think that would make a great video topic, maybe reading/recommending books with bi rep also! 💙💗💜
Do you have recommendations? The only straight-facing bi-led book I read recently was a fantasy book, Saints of Storm and Sorrow. And I think that's also the endgame in Exes & Foes but I haven't read that one.
@@pauieeepau 1. The vampire chronicles series by Anne rice most characters are bisexual 2. Delilah green doesn't care by Ashley herring Blake one of the main characters is bisexual Ashley also wrote two other books with bi characters 3. Silver nitrate by Silvia moreno Garcia
@@pauieeepau The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian; The Stand-Up Groomsman by Jackie Lau; Let Love Rule by Frances M. Thompson; Xeni by Rebekah Weatherspoon; Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur; Behooved by M. Stevenson; Maneater by Emily Antoinette; Role Playing by Cathy Yardley
Bi 🤝 Ace solidarity on not being “queer enough” when we’re in a het presenting relationship (or queer enough in general, regardless of relationship status 🙃)
HEAVYYYYYYY on your #2 hot take. Oh my god I’m so sick of authors complaining online about getting negative reviews and whining about people not liking their books. Focus on the people who do like your work, I beg, but you can’t stop or guilt-trip people out of writing negative/critical reviews about your books if that’s how they feel. Writing and publishing a book doesn’t entitle you to anything.
Gosh thank you for mentioning the American individualism and military complex of Fourth Wing! I love me a trashy fantasy romance but I couldn’t even read it exactly because of this
With how much I see the complaints about cartoon covers, I feel like it is a hot take that I still really like those covers, regardless of genre. I think the main reason is that I am not really a visual reader and seeing how the main characters look like immediatly helps me be more invested in their stories.
To me on one hand I think it’s nice that they can be more discreet but in the other hand they can be too misleading abt the amount of spice. Sometimes I like seeing what the characters were imagined to look like and sometimes I don’t. It kinda depends on if the character description is good or not.
I worked in a chain bookstore. Mass market paperbacks that didn't sell had their front covers ripped off and sent in for credit, and everything else went into the dumpster. As long as it's your book, do whatever you want with it. Just take good care of other people's books and library books.
3:06 I think important to note: This Does NOT apply to fanfiction. You didn't pay for it, someone wrote this thing for the fun of it and decided to graciously share it with the hyperfixation gremlins of the world. If you can't say something nice, shut the f-train up. Signed, someone who has never written a word of fanfic but loves all fanfic writers so so much ❤
i think as long as you aren’t planning to give books away you can do whatever you want to them even if it “ruins” their condition. i try to keep my books as pristine as possible because i dislike keeping them as clutter in my house so i donate them to my local library and don’t want people to have to deal with my annotations and stuff. if you aren’t doing that or something similar you could burn the book for all i care
two things I would add is the underrepresentation of romance between bisexual or straight trans masc/man with a woman (at least that I've seen if you have recs, plssss tell me!) and as far as the dark romance genre goes I just want to say that any book including what dark romance enjoyers say is bdsm/kink/etc and there's no consent than that is NOT bdsm/kink/etc! because at the unnegotiable center of bdsm/kink/etc is ✨CONSENT✨
I came here to say EXACTLY that about transman/woman relationships. Every single book I've read about a transman, he's gay. Not even bi. It's great rep and all, but I'd like to see myself in a book at least once. It also means the whole 'being attracted to a body that looks like mine' subject is never discussed, which is a huge missed opportunity.
I just hear Nathalie from WeirdoBookClub say "it’s not a kink, it’s a crime!" You can do and participate in any kink/BDSM as long as there is communication, trust, and consent from both parties. That’s my main issue with a lot of dark romance
Yes PLEASE do a video essay about bisexuality in books, as a bi person in a cis-appearing relationship, it's SO FRUSTRATING!! even my adult kid attempted to bi-erase me once because I'm 'not queer' like wtf. It's why I add female lovers into my reverse harem books now. HELLO SHE IS INTO ALL THE PEOPLE, thank you. Love your hot takes btw
Re your dark romance take - I highly recommend watching Contrapoints’s and Princess Weeks’s respective videos about Twilight (get ready for a Marvel movie and a half’s length of nuance but incredibly articulated and entertaining) Those videos genuinely added so much depth to my perspective on the romance genre
❤📚😂 I thrift a majority of my books, and if they're like new for a dollar, I don't care if they are hardback or paperback! I, too, enjoy the aesthetic.
a bunch of my series from my teen years are half paperback and half hardcover but now that im an adult with my adult money i personally do like to match the format as much as i can. but i do love the look of different book sizes on the shelves
I just listened to Role Playing by Cathy Yardly and adored it for a lot of reasons, but namely bc the mmc is an openly bisexual man and the mfc supoorts him and stands up for him against homophobic family
It's hard to get over the idea that physical books are precious and should be preserved forever--my partner still has trouble with it! People insisting that *other people* have bookshelves that match some social media standard can safely be ignored. At some point on that spectrum of opinion I feel cover esthetics has overcome the idea that the inside of the book is where the real art is happening.
Take 3: there is a difference between this book is bad and this book was not what I wanted. The second is a reader's problem. But Bride doesn't have a cartoon cover, it has an ANIME cover. It is completely different. Personally the book was EXACTLY what I imagined when I saw the cover, not the least because there are at least 2 anime in the past 10 years with a similar plot and a similar art style. 14:13 I dont read dark romance a lot but I will answer. We are tired. We have lives, we struggle, and we read FOR FUN. A silly little fantasy is what we do for fun. And we do not owe anyone a research paper of what we do in the 2 hours we have between soul crushing work and sleep.
I've seen it described as: The author did what they wanted to do and I liked it. The author did what they wanted to do and I didn't like it. The author did not do what they wanted to do. Knowing the difference is very important.
I'm so glad other people read SJM books and hated them and can articulate why they hated them because I feel like I'd be just filled with rage and I can't force myself to actually read one to test that theory. In advance, welcome the your 30s aka the age when we're too old to give a fuck^^
Oh my god the first person synopses! I used to catalog books for my library and I cannot tell you how many self-pub motorcycle club romance synopses I’ve have to type that are split into a 2pov first person rabble of HER: “I’m in trouble and there’s only one place to turn! So I run into his bar and faint at his feet!” HIM: “she’s not the same little girl as when I knew her brother. She’s sexy and in danger. I want her to have my babies.”
I gave a new author's book a 3 or 4 star rating on GR with a thoughtful review and they messaged me for more details to justify the rating. This was a while ago and their debut book, so I assume they didn't know how to take criticism yet. But can we understand that readers don't owe 5 stars AND that 3/4 stars is pretty good for a book?!
Concerning cartoon covers: my mother's first bestselling series--starting with Undead & Unwed--had really cute cartoon covers when they came out in the 2000s. It matched the book perfectly because the series is basically a paranormal chick flick with a lot of humor. And then, sometime around the '10s, the publishers switched to glossy, glamorous, real-person covers that were just...meh. And it really annoyed Mom because now half the books have one style of cover and the other half are another. And THEN, in the 2020s, cartoon covers are in again.
My hot take: rainbow shelves are not only pretty to look at, but they're also a perfectly logical way of shelving books in a personal collection. They wouldn't work in a bookstore for obvious reasons, but individuals rarely have thousands upon thousands of books at home, and therefore they don't need an alphabetical order to find the book they're looking for. Most of the times, "oh right, the spine was red" is plenty enough.
"Men don't read" did not go the way I expected; thank you for giving me a new perspective on that one. . I do read more than, well, all my partners actually. My GF is doing a very time consuming course, but my male partners the reason they read less than me is because they're less good at switching tasks. If I'm doing childcare or cooking dinner or whatever, I have a book in hand (unless I actively need two hands, or the child wants direct interaction, but sometimes they just want someone near by, especially our littlest).
I always buy hardcovers if I can because I am one of the dont break the spine girlies, but if the softcover is prettier or if it's the only one I can find ata reasonable price, I go with that. My one hot take is, books should have standardized sizes. ALL hardcovers and ALL softcovers published in a country should be the same height.
I've seen people online before say stuff like "you deserve jail time if you mix hardcovers and softcovers" and I just... don't get it? I think varied shelves look way more appealing.
Also also also people who call every wlw romance book sapphic but mlm romances gay… like the word achillean is right there for you. It really rubs me the wrong way, especially when the men are bisexual
I agree about the cartoon covers, I have been burned more then once when buying one and finding out later that it has spice. I like spice but usually not how it is done in romance books.
@5:18 I totally agree with you on this. The only exception being those Disney novels are a twist on the movie. EDIT: so when you said that Sarah J Maas used the BLM movement to promote her one of her books, I got curious as to which one it was. I searched online and I couldn’t find anything that says she used the BLM movement to promote her book. I’m not defending SJM or anything like that but I’m curious where you got your information from. I agree that SJM fans need to get over themselves sometimes.
In my real life, I agree, I don't know enough men who read, except for another trans man I know who's half my age and only reads fantasy. On booktube I've found a lot of middle age white gay men who read more contemp lit, (more of what I read) but other demographics are poorly represented.
I'm a spinebreaker and annotates so THANK YOU. And thank you for finally calling out the song lyric titles. It's what they deserve. Sarah J Maas is also a zionist so... I got rid of my entire ACOTAR season after finding that out lol. Discovery of Witches is an excellent romantasy that came before ACOTAR. As a fellow bisexual, I would very much like that video. Excellent hot takes, snaps for your hot takes lol
I've found that book collecting and book reading are two separate hobbies until I tell people I don't collect books and will only buy physical copies of books I've already read and would want to reread. Suddenly my preference for ebooks becomes a problem to be solved instead of just accepting that collecting books is not my hobby. And, really, I only buy the physical copies I do because I don't trust that my digital copies won't just disappear overnight. Edit: Thought of my hot take and that's peopke should just not read Harry Potter anymore. There are other books. I understand that they carry emotional significance to a lot of peoole, but JK is actively hurting people and that's more important. There is a book that quite literally changed the way i view the world and made me a better person. But the author is trash and still financially benefits from the sale of their books so that book doesn't get talked about. You buy an Eddings and, from my understanding, the money goes to a non-profit. Also they're dead so you dont have to worry about supporting child abusers. You buy Harry Potter and the money goes directly to the person financially backing all of the anti-trans crap in the UK. They are not the same situation.
@@amaresuify hard agree with your HP take. Reading it keeps the author relevant, even if you don’t financially support her. Her being relevant is dangerous because she uses her notoriety to hurt people
5:00 My boyfriend broke his leg on Halloween and one of the first things he wants to do once he can put a decent amount of weight on it is to go to a city that has a Raising Canes and Half Priced Books and Savers across the street. Even though he is in a no-buy year 16:00 From personal experience, my dad and boyfriend LOVE reading, but they don't go on the internet like others do. They have full time jobs so they're tired to make book content and book events are at bad times. My dad reads mostly nonfiction and my boyfriend reads pretty much only mystery books. I wonder if there's a reason why book clubs are stereotypically mostly women's spaces
I dont know you personally, but from my impression of you it dosnt suprise me you have a mix of books. It would drive me crazy on my own self, but i think people should have there shelfs as they like, it kinda shows parts of there personality and thats why i love seeing other peoples self. Also i love fouth wing and it dosnt bother me if people hate or joke about it, but i often like book that people say are easy to read books and that might be cuz its my second language 😅
These takes were so hot I think you warmed up my leftovers. Thanks for the assist. GIVE US YOUR BISEXUAL ESSAY. I have a version of one myself, though it relates to video games with romance where every companion character is defacto bisexual and while I can obviously live with it given how many hours i have in some of them... I low-key hate it with the fiery passion of a properly formatted essay.
👏👏👏👏 on the fourth wing and sjm hot takes, and the harry potter take, and the…wait this whole video was just great 😂 edit to add: please make the video on bisexuality!
Woo. Coming in hot on that first take. I feel atracked already. Kidding. I am one of the ones who don't dog ear or annotate, and I, honestly, don't understand the appeal of it myself, but it doesn't bother me when other people do it, except for a mild annoyance when I find a book I've been looking for in a used book store only to see a bunch of annotations I don't care about covering the margins. The reason I don't dog ear or annotate is because I'm a classic lit b**** who loves the leatherbound gilded edged beauties that are expensive. If I'm spending $140 on a book that was last printed before I was born. I'm not writing in it; I'm not dog-earing it; I'm not loaning it to a friend; I am treating it like my first born child. That b**** has a book sleeve on it if it's not in my hand or on my shelf.
I dog-ear my books! Some of my books, I've had since I was a little kid and I just love seeing all the places I stopped before. Did I wait until the end of the chapter? Did I stop in the middle of it?
Regarding HP, it confuses me how someone who is aware of all the discourse could still find any enjoyment in it. I don't think I could. But that's probably easy for me to say - I never read HP
"Begin Again" is the name of a musical movie that I adore, and I was today years old when I learned it is also an unrelated T Swift song, haha. As a queer nonbinary person in a relationship w a pan cis man, i feel incredibly ill percieved, like everyone assumes we are cishets. Anyway... I love finding queer romances. My hot take is that i honestly think terrible queer romances are better than mid hetero ones 😂 My husband reads, but he's been inundated with the idea that audiobooks aren't "real" books. I have gotten him reading more with Star wars universe audiobooks. My dad reads pretty much anything... ok, this might be influenced by the fact that my mom and brother are both librarians 😂
I've been buying books since Waldenbooks was still around and you got gift CERTIFICATES (not cards), and the kids' books were $4.99 for a mass-market paperback 😂 so yeah, I have pretty mismatched shelves. And some of those older books do in fact look like a river monster took a nibble. But they're all loved and read (and read, and read, and read...). It gives my living room character, I think.
I understand being disappointed when you expected a sapphic romance and there is none because the female bi character ends up with a man, but unless it was advertised as a sapphic romance, that was probably your own bias that you assumed that in the first place. The only thing I have a problem with is if the only queer character is a bi character in a m/f relationship who doesn't have any queer friends and isn't connected to queer culture (aka the character started out as straight and the author changed them to bisexual later to increase diversity) or their sexuality comes up as a conflict (like their love interest worrying they won't be satisfied or cheat on them).
My hot take is that no one should take any booktuber seriously because it’s impossible to know what you really think or believe when you’re just trying to get the algorithm to notice you and bring in more Adsense money. Even if they were being genuine so many videos from larger booktubers end up giving one line comments to books they liked or didn’t like and that’s just lazy. Don’t listen to influencers because they couldn’t care less about you or your experience they just want your time so instead of wasting your time listening to their trite and shallow opinions spend that time reading a book you love or have always wanted to read but couldn’t find the time. You, dear viewer, are so much smarter and more interesting than any of these booktube clones who regurgitate the same nonsense over and and over and over again.
16:55 as a man, I have to disagree here. Everyone can read whatever they want for fun. You think that low stakes fantasy like Legends and Lattes or romance books are fun? Cool. But for me, fun is reading dark fantasy/sci fi books with blood, murder, death and chaos that usually include morally grey characters and dark humor. Fun is different for everyone, and you shouldn't decide that for other people
I completely agree with everything said! But, since we are talking about hot takes, I would like to throw out a hot take that I've had for a long time. I absolutely despise deckled edges. I think they're ugly and unnecessarily inconvenient. As a reader, I should not have to use two hands to flip one page. And I think the excuse that it makes books look more ancient is a terrible excuse. Yellow pages make books look more ancient, but you don't see people saying they like the look yellow pages!
SAME, instant turnoff for me and I won't buy if it has deckled edges. It's definitely a sensory ick but I also think they just always look messy rather than aged
I do regret buying the Harry Potter books new but to be fair, I didn't know she was a horrible person when I bought them. I wish I could have bought them used. I wouldn't say Harry Potter is a big part of my personality, but the movies were a big part of my childhood and I hate how Rowling has tainted those wonderful memories for me. Especially since I find myself becoming more nostalgic as I age.
Here’s a hot take: Men ARE reading. They just aren’t showing up to reading social events because they’re too busy working. Either that, or they are at home recovering because they just worked an ungodly number of hours and do not have the energy for that sort of thing very often. Every man that I know, from parents to brothers, to good friends is out there doing the grind to support themselves and the people they love. And, I’m sorry. Most men don’t like sappy romance novels. Let them read their epic fantasy, their crime books, and stuff. They aren’t suffering under “the patriarchy”. They are reading what they enjoy.
This is such a prime example of anti-intellectualism and lazy argumentation. First, men not reading (especially widely within fiction) is a well-documented, uncontroversial phenomenon. We know because publishers make it their business to know who is buying and reading books. Second, your personal experience is not universal nor does it determine statistical reality. You also seem to assume that women who read and engage in these social circles don't work, which is not true. Third, by dismissing romance and saying "let men read their two genres," you are reaffirming the point in the video: that men do not read widely. Simultaneously, you don't even entertain the question of why reading widely has value or why men might only enjoy such a narrow scope of literature. You simply state their preference as inate fact without an ounce of curiosity or consideration to the point being made in a video.
@hanasanyikaze25 Sorry to break to you, but most people (me included) read books for entertainment above all else. A romance to me isn't as entertaining as a sci fi book or a horror book. And if I am not entertained, then I am not gonna read. At the end of the day, reading is a hobby. Why should I spend my time reading a book that doesn't appeal to me? I am not saying that books I read don't have romance, but it is always a secondary plot because I don't find it interesting enough by itself Have you seen many women read horror books or dark fantasy ( not dark romance, these two are very different)? No, because it is usually not their preferred genre and that's ok
How is she supporting women? I haven't seen this anywhere but I have seen JK Rowling publishing multiple transphobic posts on X and telling that she is proud to be transphobic. I have also seen JK Rowling sharing a link to online shop which sells homophonic, transphobic, biphobic etc. items and highly recommend people to buy these products. She also have made some questionable remarks towards people of color but this isn't surprising because JK Rowling did make the Indian girl character in Harry Potter to be "crazy" /toxic girlfriend towards Ron 🙄
Ooh 🫖 I like a pretty bookshelf, but when it comes to forms and sizes, mine's a mess 😂 I buy a lot 2nd hand, so my books will always be mismatched. Admittedly though, if I really like a book and have an ugly edition, I might upgrade it to a prettier version. Not sure if I have any hot takes to add, since I agreed with pretty much everything you said. Maybe that I don't understand collecting 30 editions of your favourite book, especially in languages you don't even speak? Obviously ppl are free to collect whatever they like, it's their money and shelf space.
“I have plenty of books where the main character does not have a love interest, there is no romance in the books, but it’s still a queer book” going to need that list PLEASE!!!🙂 as a bi/ace human, I would like to read all of them 👍
THANK YOU for the discussion on bisexuality omg. As a bi woman engaged to a straight cis man, I often feel like I'm somehow not "queer enough" or like I don't belong in the LGBTQIA+ community because I'm with a man when that's literally part of being bi lol. I would like to see more bi representation in books, for sure, especially with "hetero facing" relationships with bi characters because I feel like that would validate and reassure people who are in similar situations, like me, that we're still queer even if we're in a straight-passing relationship. Thank you for and yes I think that would make a great video topic, maybe reading/recommending books with bi rep also! 💙💗💜
Do you have recommendations? The only straight-facing bi-led book I read recently was a fantasy book, Saints of Storm and Sorrow. And I think that's also the endgame in Exes & Foes but I haven't read that one.
This is why I'm currently writing a queer fantasy book with bi representation! There needs to be more bi rep in fantasy.
@@pauieeepau
1. The vampire chronicles series by Anne rice most characters are bisexual
2. Delilah green doesn't care by Ashley herring Blake one of the main characters is bisexual Ashley also wrote two other books with bi characters
3. Silver nitrate by Silvia moreno Garcia
@@pauieeepau The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian; The Stand-Up Groomsman by Jackie Lau; Let Love Rule by Frances M. Thompson; Xeni by Rebekah Weatherspoon; Truly, Madly, Deeply by Alexandria Bellefleur; Behooved by M. Stevenson; Maneater by Emily Antoinette; Role Playing by Cathy Yardley
Bi 🤝 Ace solidarity on not being “queer enough” when we’re in a het presenting relationship (or queer enough in general, regardless of relationship status 🙃)
HEAVYYYYYYY on your #2 hot take. Oh my god I’m so sick of authors complaining online about getting negative reviews and whining about people not liking their books. Focus on the people who do like your work, I beg, but you can’t stop or guilt-trip people out of writing negative/critical reviews about your books if that’s how they feel. Writing and publishing a book doesn’t entitle you to anything.
Gosh thank you for mentioning the American individualism and military complex of Fourth Wing! I love me a trashy fantasy romance but I couldn’t even read it exactly because of this
I’ve been yelling “YEEESS, GIRRRLLLLLL” at the screen this entire video. You’re a real one.
With how much I see the complaints about cartoon covers, I feel like it is a hot take that I still really like those covers, regardless of genre. I think the main reason is that I am not really a visual reader and seeing how the main characters look like immediatly helps me be more invested in their stories.
To me on one hand I think it’s nice that they can be more discreet but in the other hand they can be too misleading abt the amount of spice. Sometimes I like seeing what the characters were imagined to look like and sometimes I don’t. It kinda depends on if the character description is good or not.
I love them too!
I worked in a chain bookstore. Mass market paperbacks that didn't sell had their front covers ripped off and sent in for credit, and everything else went into the dumpster.
As long as it's your book, do whatever you want with it. Just take good care of other people's books and library books.
3:06 I think important to note: This Does NOT apply to fanfiction. You didn't pay for it, someone wrote this thing for the fun of it and decided to graciously share it with the hyperfixation gremlins of the world. If you can't say something nice, shut the f-train up.
Signed, someone who has never written a word of fanfic but loves all fanfic writers so so much ❤
I totally agree with all of these! And I would love a video essay on the representation of bi characters : ) !!
i think as long as you aren’t planning to give books away you can do whatever you want to them even if it “ruins” their condition. i try to keep my books as pristine as possible because i dislike keeping them as clutter in my house so i donate them to my local library and don’t want people to have to deal with my annotations and stuff. if you aren’t doing that or something similar you could burn the book for all i care
two things I would add is the underrepresentation of romance between bisexual or straight trans masc/man with a woman (at least that I've seen if you have recs, plssss tell me!) and as far as the dark romance genre goes I just want to say that any book including what dark romance enjoyers say is bdsm/kink/etc and there's no consent than that is NOT bdsm/kink/etc! because at the unnegotiable center of bdsm/kink/etc is ✨CONSENT✨
Thank you for articulating this!!!
I came here to say EXACTLY that about transman/woman relationships. Every single book I've read about a transman, he's gay. Not even bi.
It's great rep and all, but I'd like to see myself in a book at least once.
It also means the whole 'being attracted to a body that looks like mine' subject is never discussed, which is a huge missed opportunity.
I just hear Nathalie from WeirdoBookClub say "it’s not a kink, it’s a crime!" You can do and participate in any kink/BDSM as long as there is communication, trust, and consent from both parties. That’s my main issue with a lot of dark romance
Please make that video about bisexuality!! I need it haha. Thank you for all your hot takes, totally agree!
As a bisexual who reads a lot, I'd love to hear your longer thoughts on how we're represented!
Yes PLEASE do a video essay about bisexuality in books, as a bi person in a cis-appearing relationship, it's SO FRUSTRATING!! even my adult kid attempted to bi-erase me once because I'm 'not queer' like wtf. It's why I add female lovers into my reverse harem books now. HELLO SHE IS INTO ALL THE PEOPLE, thank you.
Love your hot takes btw
Re your dark romance take - I highly recommend watching Contrapoints’s and Princess Weeks’s respective videos about Twilight (get ready for a Marvel movie and a half’s length of nuance but incredibly articulated and entertaining)
Those videos genuinely added so much depth to my perspective on the romance genre
❤📚😂
I thrift a majority of my books, and if they're like new for a dollar, I don't care if they are hardback or paperback! I, too, enjoy the aesthetic.
I prefer paperback because they are comfier to curl up and read. It's lucky that I don't care about the million special editions that are hardback
a bunch of my series from my teen years are half paperback and half hardcover but now that im an adult with my adult money i personally do like to match the format as much as i can. but i do love the look of different book sizes on the shelves
Love this video! It had me yelling “Yes!” to all your points.
Bring on part 2 😊
You really cooked with those ACOTAR/FW and Dark Romance takes whew. 🥵
I just listened to Role Playing by Cathy Yardly and adored it for a lot of reasons, but namely bc the mmc is an openly bisexual man and the mfc supoorts him and stands up for him against homophobic family
I love that book. One of the favorite books I read this year
I absolutely loved this book too!!!
YES to everything you said re: bi-erasure and queerness
It's hard to get over the idea that physical books are precious and should be preserved forever--my partner still has trouble with it!
People insisting that *other people* have bookshelves that match some social media standard can safely be ignored. At some point on that spectrum of opinion I feel cover esthetics has overcome the idea that the inside of the book is where the real art is happening.
Take 3: there is a difference between this book is bad and this book was not what I wanted. The second is a reader's problem.
But Bride doesn't have a cartoon cover, it has an ANIME cover. It is completely different. Personally the book was EXACTLY what I imagined when I saw the cover, not the least because there are at least 2 anime in the past 10 years with a similar plot and a similar art style.
14:13 I dont read dark romance a lot but I will answer. We are tired. We have lives, we struggle, and we read FOR FUN. A silly little fantasy is what we do for fun. And we do not owe anyone a research paper of what we do in the 2 hours we have between soul crushing work and sleep.
I've seen it described as:
The author did what they wanted to do and I liked it.
The author did what they wanted to do and I didn't like it.
The author did not do what they wanted to do.
Knowing the difference is very important.
Finally! Somebody else who disdains first person synopses- Even worse when they are written in present tense. 😁
OMG was this the most fun thing I watched on the internet today! Instant subscribe! Thank you for your service!
majority of cartoon covers look middle grade even though lots are clearly NOT
Oh girl, YOU WENT THERE! Lol 😂
Loved it though!!! 🎉🎉
I'm so glad other people read SJM books and hated them and can articulate why they hated them because I feel like I'd be just filled with rage and I can't force myself to actually read one to test that theory.
In advance, welcome the your 30s aka the age when we're too old to give a fuck^^
Oh my god the first person synopses! I used to catalog books for my library and I cannot tell you how many self-pub motorcycle club romance synopses I’ve have to type that are split into a 2pov first person rabble of HER: “I’m in trouble and there’s only one place to turn! So I run into his bar and faint at his feet!”
HIM: “she’s not the same little girl as when I knew her brother. She’s sexy and in danger. I want her to have my babies.”
I gave a new author's book a 3 or 4 star rating on GR with a thoughtful review and they messaged me for more details to justify the rating. This was a while ago and their debut book, so I assume they didn't know how to take criticism yet. But can we understand that readers don't owe 5 stars AND that 3/4 stars is pretty good for a book?!
Concerning cartoon covers: my mother's first bestselling series--starting with Undead & Unwed--had really cute cartoon covers when they came out in the 2000s. It matched the book perfectly because the series is basically a paranormal chick flick with a lot of humor. And then, sometime around the '10s, the publishers switched to glossy, glamorous, real-person covers that were just...meh. And it really annoyed Mom because now half the books have one style of cover and the other half are another. And THEN, in the 2020s, cartoon covers are in again.
My hot take: rainbow shelves are not only pretty to look at, but they're also a perfectly logical way of shelving books in a personal collection. They wouldn't work in a bookstore for obvious reasons, but individuals rarely have thousands upon thousands of books at home, and therefore they don't need an alphabetical order to find the book they're looking for. Most of the times, "oh right, the spine was red" is plenty enough.
I think the first person synopsis’s can sometimes work for mysteries and thrillers. I don’t see that working for other genres
"Men don't read" did not go the way I expected; thank you for giving me a new perspective on that one.
. I do read more than, well, all my partners actually. My GF is doing a very time consuming course, but my male partners the reason they read less than me is because they're less good at switching tasks. If I'm doing childcare or cooking dinner or whatever, I have a book in hand (unless I actively need two hands, or the child wants direct interaction, but sometimes they just want someone near by, especially our littlest).
I always buy hardcovers if I can because I am one of the dont break the spine girlies, but if the softcover is prettier or if it's the only one I can find ata reasonable price, I go with that.
My one hot take is, books should have standardized sizes. ALL hardcovers and ALL softcovers published in a country should be the same height.
Love the mismatched book shelf, when people buy all the same for looks it feels too forced, your shelf is great.
New book title: It Was Cute, It Was Fun, It Was Fresh and Flirty.
Omgggg yes 11:18 I’m bi and LIVING for everything you’re saying here❤
Book dragons unite 🐉 📚
I've seen people online before say stuff like "you deserve jail time if you mix hardcovers and softcovers" and I just... don't get it? I think varied shelves look way more appealing.
People are so weird about their opinions sometimes 😂 I also love mixed shelves
I'd prefer not to mix them, but it can't be helped. So I don't judge people for their shelves.
Also also also people who call every wlw romance book sapphic but mlm romances gay… like the word achillean is right there for you. It really rubs me the wrong way, especially when the men are bisexual
I agree about the cartoon covers, I have been burned more then once when buying one and finding out later that it has spice. I like spice but usually not how it is done in romance books.
@5:18 I totally agree with you on this. The only exception being those Disney novels are a twist on the movie.
EDIT: so when you said that Sarah J Maas used the BLM movement to promote her one of her books, I got curious as to which one it was. I searched online and I couldn’t find anything that says she used the BLM movement to promote her book. I’m not defending SJM or anything like that but I’m curious where you got your information from. I agree that SJM fans need to get over themselves sometimes.
In my real life, I agree, I don't know enough men who read, except for another trans man I know who's half my age and only reads fantasy. On booktube I've found a lot of middle age white gay men who read more contemp lit, (more of what I read) but other demographics are poorly represented.
10:54 Yes please!!! I'd watch a video essay on that topic!!! Absolutely!!!
Great video!! I enjoyed it a lot!!
I'm a spinebreaker and annotates so THANK YOU. And thank you for finally calling out the song lyric titles. It's what they deserve. Sarah J Maas is also a zionist so... I got rid of my entire ACOTAR season after finding that out lol. Discovery of Witches is an excellent romantasy that came before ACOTAR. As a fellow bisexual, I would very much like that video. Excellent hot takes, snaps for your hot takes lol
Petition to recognize shadow the hedgehog as the original feminist shadow daddy.
Like who? 9:09 ❤❤😢 Share the authors or books
I've found that book collecting and book reading are two separate hobbies until I tell people I don't collect books and will only buy physical copies of books I've already read and would want to reread. Suddenly my preference for ebooks becomes a problem to be solved instead of just accepting that collecting books is not my hobby.
And, really, I only buy the physical copies I do because I don't trust that my digital copies won't just disappear overnight.
Edit: Thought of my hot take and that's peopke should just not read Harry Potter anymore. There are other books. I understand that they carry emotional significance to a lot of peoole, but JK is actively hurting people and that's more important. There is a book that quite literally changed the way i view the world and made me a better person. But the author is trash and still financially benefits from the sale of their books so that book doesn't get talked about.
You buy an Eddings and, from my understanding, the money goes to a non-profit. Also they're dead so you dont have to worry about supporting child abusers. You buy Harry Potter and the money goes directly to the person financially backing all of the anti-trans crap in the UK. They are not the same situation.
@@amaresuify hard agree with your HP take. Reading it keeps the author relevant, even if you don’t financially support her. Her being relevant is dangerous because she uses her notoriety to hurt people
15:25 Absolutely!!! Clearly, they're not aware of how destructive the behaviour is. And those books sound to me like portrayals of Stockholm syndrome😀
5:00 My boyfriend broke his leg on Halloween and one of the first things he wants to do once he can put a decent amount of weight on it is to go to a city that has a Raising Canes and Half Priced Books and Savers across the street. Even though he is in a no-buy year
16:00 From personal experience, my dad and boyfriend LOVE reading, but they don't go on the internet like others do. They have full time jobs so they're tired to make book content and book events are at bad times. My dad reads mostly nonfiction and my boyfriend reads pretty much only mystery books. I wonder if there's a reason why book clubs are stereotypically mostly women's spaces
I dont know you personally, but from my impression of you it dosnt suprise me you have a mix of books. It would drive me crazy on my own self, but i think people should have there shelfs as they like, it kinda shows parts of there personality and thats why i love seeing other peoples self.
Also i love fouth wing and it dosnt bother me if people hate or joke about it, but i often like book that people say are easy to read books and that might be cuz its my second language 😅
These takes were so hot I think you warmed up my leftovers. Thanks for the assist.
GIVE US YOUR BISEXUAL ESSAY.
I have a version of one myself, though it relates to video games with romance where every companion character is defacto bisexual and while I can obviously live with it given how many hours i have in some of them... I low-key hate it with the fiery passion of a properly formatted essay.
I'm new to your channel, but I would love a video essay on bisexuality in books. Yes!
👏👏👏👏 on the fourth wing and sjm hot takes, and the harry potter take, and the…wait this whole video was just great 😂 edit to add: please make the video on bisexuality!
It doesn't bother me if a book is hardcover or paperback as long as it's not expensive i would buy it
Woo. Coming in hot on that first take. I feel atracked already. Kidding. I am one of the ones who don't dog ear or annotate, and I, honestly, don't understand the appeal of it myself, but it doesn't bother me when other people do it, except for a mild annoyance when I find a book I've been looking for in a used book store only to see a bunch of annotations I don't care about covering the margins.
The reason I don't dog ear or annotate is because I'm a classic lit b**** who loves the leatherbound gilded edged beauties that are expensive. If I'm spending $140 on a book that was last printed before I was born. I'm not writing in it; I'm not dog-earing it; I'm not loaning it to a friend; I am treating it like my first born child. That b**** has a book sleeve on it if it's not in my hand or on my shelf.
Omg, I thought I was the only one who hates first person synopses! Can't stand them! 😂
I dog-ear my books! Some of my books, I've had since I was a little kid and I just love seeing all the places I stopped before. Did I wait until the end of the chapter? Did I stop in the middle of it?
Regarding HP, it confuses me how someone who is aware of all the discourse could still find any enjoyment in it. I don't think I could. But that's probably easy for me to say - I never read HP
"Begin Again" is the name of a musical movie that I adore, and I was today years old when I learned it is also an unrelated T Swift song, haha.
As a queer nonbinary person in a relationship w a pan cis man, i feel incredibly ill percieved, like everyone assumes we are cishets. Anyway... I love finding queer romances. My hot take is that i honestly think terrible queer romances are better than mid hetero ones 😂
My husband reads, but he's been inundated with the idea that audiobooks aren't "real" books. I have gotten him reading more with Star wars universe audiobooks. My dad reads pretty much anything... ok, this might be influenced by the fact that my mom and brother are both librarians 😂
I've been buying books since Waldenbooks was still around and you got gift CERTIFICATES (not cards), and the kids' books were $4.99 for a mass-market paperback 😂 so yeah, I have pretty mismatched shelves. And some of those older books do in fact look like a river monster took a nibble. But they're all loved and read (and read, and read, and read...). It gives my living room character, I think.
I understand being disappointed when you expected a sapphic romance and there is none because the female bi character ends up with a man, but unless it was advertised as a sapphic romance, that was probably your own bias that you assumed that in the first place. The only thing I have a problem with is if the only queer character is a bi character in a m/f relationship who doesn't have any queer friends and isn't connected to queer culture (aka the character started out as straight and the author changed them to bisexual later to increase diversity) or their sexuality comes up as a conflict (like their love interest worrying they won't be satisfied or cheat on them).
Do the bisexuality video essay!
Oooooh the tea is sizzling 👏🏼
My hot take is that no one should take any booktuber seriously because it’s impossible to know what you really think or believe when you’re just trying to get the algorithm to notice you and bring in more Adsense money. Even if they were being genuine so many videos from larger booktubers end up giving one line comments to books they liked or didn’t like and that’s just lazy. Don’t listen to influencers because they couldn’t care less about you or your experience they just want your time so instead of wasting your time listening to their trite and shallow opinions spend that time reading a book you love or have always wanted to read but couldn’t find the time. You, dear viewer, are so much smarter and more interesting than any of these booktube clones who regurgitate the same nonsense over and and over and over again.
Agreed to all of this!!
16:55 as a man, I have to disagree here. Everyone can read whatever they want for fun. You think that low stakes fantasy like Legends and Lattes or romance books are fun? Cool. But for me, fun is reading dark fantasy/sci fi books with blood, murder, death and chaos that usually include morally grey characters and dark humor. Fun is different for everyone, and you shouldn't decide that for other people
I agree with most of u said really!!
1st person & ACOTAR haha YES.
Darling, how did you manage to be RIGHT in every one of your hot takes?
Yes,please,do the essay!
Please do the video essay!!
I completely agree with everything said! But, since we are talking about hot takes, I would like to throw out a hot take that I've had for a long time. I absolutely despise deckled edges. I think they're ugly and unnecessarily inconvenient. As a reader, I should not have to use two hands to flip one page. And I think the excuse that it makes books look more ancient is a terrible excuse. Yellow pages make books look more ancient, but you don't see people saying they like the look yellow pages!
SAME, instant turnoff for me and I won't buy if it has deckled edges. It's definitely a sensory ick but I also think they just always look messy rather than aged
I do regret buying the Harry Potter books new but to be fair, I didn't know she was a horrible person when I bought them. I wish I could have bought them used. I wouldn't say Harry Potter is a big part of my personality, but the movies were a big part of my childhood and I hate how Rowling has tainted those wonderful memories for me. Especially since I find myself becoming more nostalgic as I age.
Also I think the 4 hour drifter bros are still worse in a materialist sense...I feel the harm they put out into the world is just...kind of worse.
Loved this!
My bother reads but only fantasy by white men, also you're 1000% right about Bi rep and it sucks.
Yoooo… we’re meeting at A&W?! Count me in💕✨
❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Here’s a hot take:
Men ARE reading. They just aren’t showing up to reading social events because they’re too busy working. Either that, or they are at home recovering because they just worked an ungodly number of hours and do not have the energy for that sort of thing very often.
Every man that I know, from parents to brothers, to good friends is out there doing the grind to support themselves and the people they love.
And, I’m sorry. Most men don’t like sappy romance novels. Let them read their epic fantasy, their crime books, and stuff. They aren’t suffering under “the patriarchy”. They are reading what they enjoy.
This is such a prime example of anti-intellectualism and lazy argumentation. First, men not reading (especially widely within fiction) is a well-documented, uncontroversial phenomenon. We know because publishers make it their business to know who is buying and reading books. Second, your personal experience is not universal nor does it determine statistical reality. You also seem to assume that women who read and engage in these social circles don't work, which is not true. Third, by dismissing romance and saying "let men read their two genres," you are reaffirming the point in the video: that men do not read widely. Simultaneously, you don't even entertain the question of why reading widely has value or why men might only enjoy such a narrow scope of literature. You simply state their preference as inate fact without an ounce of curiosity or consideration to the point being made in a video.
@hanasanyikaze25 Sorry to break to you, but most people (me included) read books for entertainment above all else. A romance to me isn't as entertaining as a sci fi book or a horror book. And if I am not entertained, then I am not gonna read. At the end of the day, reading is a hobby. Why should I spend my time reading a book that doesn't appeal to me? I am not saying that books I read don't have romance, but it is always a secondary plot because I don't find it interesting enough by itself
Have you seen many women read horror books or dark fantasy ( not dark romance, these two are very different)? No, because it is usually not their preferred genre and that's ok
JK Rowling isn’t doing any harm, she is supporting women. This “hot take” is stupid and needs to be gone.
How is she supporting women? I haven't seen this anywhere but I have seen JK Rowling publishing multiple transphobic posts on X and telling that she is proud to be transphobic. I have also seen JK Rowling sharing a link to online shop which sells homophonic, transphobic, biphobic etc. items and highly recommend people to buy these products. She also have made some questionable remarks towards people of color but this isn't surprising because JK Rowling did make the Indian girl character in Harry Potter to be "crazy" /toxic girlfriend towards Ron 🙄
Ooh 🫖 I like a pretty bookshelf, but when it comes to forms and sizes, mine's a mess 😂 I buy a lot 2nd hand, so my books will always be mismatched. Admittedly though, if I really like a book and have an ugly edition, I might upgrade it to a prettier version.
Not sure if I have any hot takes to add, since I agreed with pretty much everything you said. Maybe that I don't understand collecting 30 editions of your favourite book, especially in languages you don't even speak? Obviously ppl are free to collect whatever they like, it's their money and shelf space.